Lou Williams didn’t stay with the Raptors in Oklahoma City during their recent three-game road swing.

When the team charter arrived at the Skirvin Hilton Hotel last weekend, he jumped in a cab and headed to a different place to stay the night.

No, it wasn’t a case of not wanting to associate with his teammates.

The veteran NBA guard just has a preference when it comes to hotels. He prefers one that isn’t haunted.

The Skirvin Hilton Hotel in Oklahoma City has that reputation in NBA circles. So, too, does the Pfister in Milwaukee.

Both are older hotels. The Skirvin was built in 1911. The Pfister predates even that, opening its doors in 1893.

The Skirvin is believed to be spooked by a former maid who had an affair with the hotel’s owner and became pregnant. As the story goes, in order to keep the affair a secret, the owner imprisoned her in a 10th-floor room, where she eventually gave birth and fell into a depression when, even after the birth, she was still denied her freedom.

As legend goes, the maid jumped to her death one day, taking the baby with her.

There have been multiple accounts over the years of men claiming to have been joined in the shower by a naked female or propositioned by a female voice while alone in their rooms.

The Raptors still use the Skirvin in OKC, and did so last Saturday night. It could have been a two-night stay, but the Raps stayed overnight in Charlotte after a game there Friday, practised there on Saturday and then flew to OKC for the Sunday game.

They have used the Pfister in Milwaukee, although this year they moved over to the InterContinental. Whether they return is anyone’s guess, but Williams will find his own lodgings if they do.

Williams has been doing so since 2009 when he had his first and only experience with, what he can only surmise were, ghosts.

He was playing with the Philadelphia 76ers and checked into the Pfister, which bills itself as “the premiere hotel in downtown Milwaukee.”

With the team charter arriving late, Williams went right to his room and, as he always does, locked and chained the door.

As is also customary, team staff left the next morning’s practice sweats hanging on a loop on the outside door handle of each player’s room.

“I remember hearing my practice loop hitting the door but, in hotels, I make it a habit to put my latch on and lock the door,” Williams said. “I got up at 3 or 4 in the morning to use the bathroom and my practice loop was on the inside of my door.”

That’s the last time Williams has stayed in either hotel.

“I never really paid any attention to the stories before that,” he said. “I knew it was supposed to be haunted, but I thought it was funny. Then that happens and it’s not so funny anymore.”

Williams won’t admit to being afraid of ghosts, but he has kept his distance ever since.

“I’m still not scared of ghosts,” Williams said Thursday after recounting his story. “I just don’t want it to happen again, but it definitely freaked me out, for sure.”

Raptors head coach Dwane Casey wasn’t even aware thata Williams was making his own plans this past weekend, but he’s certainly heard the stories of the two hotels being haunted.

He even believes there are a few teams in the league that avoid those hotels all together because of he stories.

The New York Knicks, famously, once blamed a loss on a rough night at the Skirvin.

It was early January of 2010 and the Knicks had a two-night stay in Oklahoma City. Eddy Curry, who stands seven feet tall and weighed almost 300 pounds when he was in the NBA, claimed to have slept only two hours in total he was so worried about the ghosts roaming the hotel. One story had him spending most of the night in teammate Nate Robinson’s room.

The Pfister has a more extensive haunted history with Major League Baseball teams than basketball teams, Williams’ story notwithstanding.

But like Williams, both Pablo Sandoval, then with the San Francisco Giants and then teammate Edgar Renteria refused to stay at the hotel in 2010 after both had an unexplainable experience the year before. Both packed up and checked into another hotel down the block.

DeMar DeRozan said the Raptors are aware of Williams’ experience and not much gets said about it.

Asked if he believed the story when he first heard it, DeRozan was initially skeptical but quickly added: “I don’t argue with my teammate. If he says it happened, then I believe him. Me, personally? I’ve never seen anything.”

Williams says he’s heard of other players in the NBA who, like him, avoid those two hotels and find their own accommodation but he doesn’t offer names.

And as for taking any grief from his own teammates, he says there hasn’t been a hint of it.

“No, not at all,” Williams said. “They understand. Some of them probably want to do the same thing but they don’t want to say it. Others have their wives or kids on the road with them so they have company. I don’t have company so I’ve got to stay somewhere else.”

It’s not like he can’t afford it.

“I just pay for my own room somewhere else,” he said. “I pay $150 or $200 for some peace of mind.”

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